


The Anesthetics of Grief

by WednesdaysDaughter



Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WednesdaysDaughter/pseuds/WednesdaysDaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s a little like going under for surgery I’d imagine. Sort of like, the world fades out and when I snap back into it, I’m in a new place: Not an unfamiliar place mind you, just a different one.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Anesthetics of Grief

**Author's Note:**

> I stupidly decided to watch this show thanks to a certain attractive dwarf and in the past week I've been to Hell and back emotionally. I am far from done with this show and this doomed ship that has ruined me for all time - but this is a good start. Of course by good start I mean an "emotionally abusive" start because angst is so easy to write for this stupid show.

Annie loses a day.

It wasn’t a particularly special day exactly – it was just an average, relatively normal day. A day where Nina couldn’t find her left shoe and George hummed under his breath as he made breakfast. The house was quiet – something they’d been forced to grow accustomed to in the passing week and it was cloudy outside.

It was a normal day.

One minute Annie is staring at the cup in her hands, the next her vision slowly fades and she blinks quickly to dispel the sensation and then she’s in the hallway – in front of his door.

“That’s odd,” she says to herself and tries to shake off the static feeling that has settled over her like a warm blanket. She walks down stairs and sees George and Nina sitting at the couch in front of the bar.

“I hate it when I can’t control where I rent-a-ghost. It’s so inconvenient.”

George jerks his head around and Nina’s eyes widen and they stare at Annie – not saying anything.

“Okay… not to pull out the old cliché, but you both look like you just saw a ghost and I’m pretty sure you both should be used to that by now,” Annie chuckles but it falls flat when they remain silent.

“Annie, where were you?” George asks softly and Annie waves it off.

“I poofed upstairs for a second. I didn’t mean to though, it just sort of happened. Did you finish breakfast already? I know werewolves have an appetite, but wow.”

“Annie,” Nina says calmly and Annie’s instantly on alert, “that was yesterday.”

If Annie had a working heart, it would have stopped.

“But that – that’s not possible. It just happened, just now. I was making tea in the kitchen –“

“Annie, it’s Thursday night. You disappeared yesterday morning.

“We called around the house but you didn’t answer. We even walked around last night, but you were gone.”

“We were worried about you.”

“Where did you go?”

George and Nina stopped questioning her when Annie raises a shaky hand.

“I don’t know.”

 - - - - - - -

It happens two more time that week, but it only lasts twenty-four hours each time.

“It’s a little like going under for surgery I’d imagine. Sort of like, the world fades out and when I snap back into it, I’m in a new place: Not an unfamiliar place mind you, just a different one.”

Annie stares at the shattered pieces of the mug she’d been holding the first time. It had been his favorite. Annie feels off and it's so unnerving that it frightens her. It’s not a physical numbness, but it settles into her phantom bones and Annie feels faded around the edges: Like a shaded circle on a scantron that wasn’t erased well enough and was marked wrong.

The third time she wakes up in his room and falls to her knees. George finds her lying in the bed later that night.

“Oh Annie,” he sighs and she wipes away the trail of tears she doesn’t remember crying.

“What’s happening to me, George?”

“Grief.”

 - - - - - - -

Nina sits on the couch with her after Annie loses two full days – a hot cup of tea in her hand and a worried frown on her face. She doesn’t really know how to comfort Annie and no one has any answers for what’s going on.

“It’s like he took a part of me with him and I’m trying to get it back,” Annie whispers.

“You took a part of him too – when you left.”

It’s not the most comforting thing to say, but it gets a soft smile out of Annie, so Nina counts it as a success.

“Do you believe in fate?” Annie asks and Nina thinks back to how her heart lurched in her chest when they said goodbye. She thinks about how easy George fit into her life, even when it hurt.

“I didn't, but I do now.”

 - - - - - - -

Days turn to weeks and Annie worries the next thing she loses will be a month, or even a memory. It terrifies her - this fading act she's cultivated as a defense against the crushing grief that wants to drown her. She’s worried she’ll miss the baby being born.

She worries that she’ll miss life coming into their home and only remember the death.

Annie finds one of his gloves in the couch cushion and before she can go under and hand grabs hers and holds on tightly.

“Stay, Annie. Please just stay.”

George’s voice is like an anchor – keeping her tethered to the world that made monsters out of men and mourners out of their lovers. She takes a shuddering breath and turns into George’s open arms. She cries for the first time in days and imagines the warm feeling of George’s tears in her hair.

“He wouldn’t want this for you Annie. He’d want you to fill this place with mugs full of tea and coo over Nina’s growing belly. He’d want you to tease me about my baby voice and go on your night ventures.”

Annie feels herself nodding and she clings to his forgotten glove.

“Mitchell would want you to live.”

“I know.”

 - - - - - - -

It gets better after that.

She still feels like there’s something pulling at her soul – trying to entice her to follow, but she stays and powers through the ache.

She laughs with George as they dance around each other in the kitchen. She goes shopping with Nina for baby clothes and fawns over the babies in the store and their mothers who can’t see her. She slowly glues the mug that started it all back together and when the sun comes up every morning she cradles it in her cold hands like something precious.

She tells Nina about the first time they met and they laugh at the picture of a vampire and a werewolf defending themselves with an umbrella and a cricket bat. She doesn’t hesitate to go into his room and just sit – content to remember how if felt when they laid together. Some nights she curls on top of a pillow and imagines it’s his body underneath her. She gets George to smile on bad days when his hand remembers the ease of staking his best friend and she makes up the couch when Nina’s too hormonal to deal with his overprotective fathering.

The sun rises and sets and Annie remembers every second of every one by holding onto the good parts and accepting the bad ones. She lives because it’s what Mitchell would have wanted and maybe once she’s lived enough they’ll have their eternity.

Annie doesn’t lose any more days and she’s never felt more alive.

She’s never felt more human.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't cry while writing this, but it was a near thing. I'm going to start s4 this week, so wish me luck.


End file.
